


now i'm ready to feel your hand, and lose my heart on the burning sands

by getmean



Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Tending to Wounds, Trans Male Character, Vulnerability, god won't someone please hold the mandalorian, okay there's plot if you squint, t4t
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:55:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28137297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/getmean/pseuds/getmean
Summary: If one submits sand to extreme heat, it becomes glass. Din feels as though he’s set to shatter, when Vanth’s hot fingers nudge at the curl of hair that just creeps from under Din’s helmet, at his nape.
Relationships: Din Djarin/Cobb Vanth
Comments: 39
Kudos: 270





	now i'm ready to feel your hand, and lose my heart on the burning sands

“You’re bleeding from under your helmet,” Vanth says, helpfully, as he squats down in front of Din. His knees crack; he groans.

“I know,” Din says, evenly. “Thanks.”

Vanth’s eyes are on the medkit he’d dug from a cabinet over Din’s head a moment ago; treating him to a face full of Vanth’s taut, hairy stomach as he’d reached up to fish it out. At Din’s words, his brows raise, eyes staying stuck on the kit as he rummages around in it. “Alright,” he mutters. “You suit yourself.”

Din inclines his head. “I will.”

The house is very quiet in the absence of their talking. Just the desert wind rattling the shutters, and Din’s own breathing. He can feel the slow drip of blood down his chin; can taste it thick and metallic in his mouth, in the back of his throat when he swallows. He thinks it may be a little anticlimactic at this point, to admit to Vanth its source; Din’s own teeth biting solidly into the meat of his lower lip when he’d hit the ground, covered in the dragon’s spit. So he keeps quiet. Speaking only opens it back up anyway. 

The child is watching them both with its wide, saucer-like eyes. _This is inevitable,_ he tries to tell it, but the child only blinks guilelessly at him. Sometimes it can seem quite shrewd. Din isn’t sure whether this is one of those occasions.

It turns out when one escapes self-immolation in a dragon’s belly by the hair of one’s teeth, coming out fully unscathed is a pipe dream. Din aches from his chewed-up lip to his twisted ankle; every other pain on his body cropping up like landmarks across his skin. The worst by far is whatever wound is staining the side of his undershirt; the fabric having gone stiff with blood in the time it had taken for him and Vanth to drag themselves back to a celebrating town. They had both wordlessly skirted it. Not for the first time, Din had felt a true pulse of gratitude for the man, as he had led Din and the child to his small home on the outskirts of Mos Pelgo. 

“Don’t suppose you’re gonna be as prudish ‘bout the rest of it?” Vanth is asking, reaching across to tap his knuckle to Din’s breastplate. Easily, Din catches the man’s wrist, and pushes him aside. 

“Don’t touch it,” he warns, and waits until Vanth holds both hands up and shifts back a little before he sets about unstrapping his beskar. 

“I ain’t gonna steal it,” Vanth says, his long legs kicked out into the space between him and Din. Vanth, with his back to the kitchen cabinets, his hands in his lap and his eyes unerring on Din as the armour falls away. Din, on the sofa, knees spread and every inch of him aching, aching, aching.

Vanth’s eyes are whiskey-coloured, in the dim yellow lamps that light his home. The same colour as the liquor he’s swilling idly around in the heavy-bottomed glass in his hand, waiting on Din’s reply.

Din sets his breastplate aside, and starts on his gloves; his gauntlets. “Forgive me for thinking you might,” he deadpans, watching as the child scrambles across Vanth’s shins. “I have no idea where I could’ve gotten that idea from.”

The gauntlets join the breastplate. Vanth’s eyes flick over him. Din feels ridiculously like he’s putting on some sort of show here; one much more suited for a person willing to show a little more skin than a wrist, a palm, some knuckles. Even more ridiculously, he finds himself leaning into it somewhat. Working the buckles at his wrist with over-exaggerated slowness and care, hyperaware of Vanth watching him closely. 

He hurts too much to consider doing anything more than this half-hearted tease. But Vanth wouldn’t be the first man Din’s met with that kind of fascination for beskar, and for the skin it hides. The attention is nice, despite his throbbing, aching self. It’s been a long time since anybody has laid eyes on Din and seen the man beneath the metal. 

The buckle clicks. The leather slips through. Din pulls the gauntlet from his arm, and sets it aside. 

Softly, Vanth asks, “Where does it hurt?” 

“Ha,” Din mutters, humourlessly. He groans as he reaches to pull his pauldron away. “Everywhere.” 

Without the weight of his armour, Din feels nude already. As if his canvas undershirt is little more than gauze; as if Vanth can see his stomach, his chest, as clear as day. He fights the urge to hunch his shoulders; instead, drawing his arm above his head with a wince to inspect the hard, dark patch of blood seeped into the cloth. 

With all the sureness of a man who’s done this sort of thing before, Vanth says, “That ain’t comin’ off there easy.”

“No,” Din murmurs in agreement, and then tugs at the fabric. It pulls the raw wound underneath; a bright new burst of pain that has him screwing up his face beneath his helmet. The wound on his lip re-opens. Din tastes blood just as he feels it start to run hot and wet down his side once more, as the wound on his rib re-opens too. 

The child is babbling quietly, seemingly happy to amuse itself amongst the crinkly wrappers in Vanth’s medkit. Vanth seems happy to let it play; gathering himself onto his knees as he comes close to the sofa again; close to Din and his pain. 

Din has to fight the urge to retreat; that part of himself that he always likens to something wild and undomesticated urging him to withdraw from Vanth. Bleeding from his mouth, from his side, from a million other tiny nicks and scratches hard-won for Mos Pelgo. He supposes he deserves this. A little tenderness in exchange for pain. God knows he’s seen enough of it since the child had entered his life. 

“C’mere,” Vanth says. And, “Easy, Mando.” His low voice soft and dragging with his accent; something round and syrupy to his words that Din finds he likes very much. Makes everything he says sound more mellow. So much so that when he murmurs, “Gotta get this off,” a heartbeat later, Din is about to tug his undershirt up and over his head before his brain plugs back in. 

He doesn’t have to admit to what had been driving the spaceship before, so to speak. What his brain had knocked out to take back the reins. Some things are better left unacknowledged, to save anybody’s hopes getting stirred up. 

Vanth is kneeling between Din’s legs. The lamp throwing its light right over his face; throwing all his features into sharp relief. Dimly, Din says, “I can’t,” and watches the corner of Vanth’s sharp mouth quirk. 

“Then how am I gonna dress your wound, huh?” His voice is playful, his expression sly. “What, I’m gonna close my eyes and do it like that?” 

Din glances away, feeling his side throb. The living area narrows to a dim hallway, through which he can see a doorway, and beyond that an unmade drenched in moonlight. He swallows. Glances back to find Vanth with his cheek pressed to his shoulder, watching the child unspool a long length of bandage. And there’s something in his face that settles Din somewhat; has him stepping back from that edge of fight or flight that pain so often puts him in. Something open, and tender; gently amused by the mess the child is making. 

“Fine,” Din says, and catches the glance Vanth throws him easily. “But it doesn’t leave this room.” 

Vanth cocks his head to the side, puzzled. “What doesn’t?”

Din doesn’t answer; just rises from the sofa to catch hold of the child and deposit him in his pram. The action makes him grit his teeth, a small noise of pain escaping him that makes Vanth move as if to stand. Din holds a hand out. 

“Gonna put the kid in your room,” he mutters. Together they glance at the child, who is looking sleepier with each passing moment. Ears drooping, eyes unfocused and half-lidded as it looks between them. “He doesn’t like blood.”

Voice low and easy, Vanth says, “Be my guest.”

On Din’s return, it’s to find Vanth eyeing him in such a way that makes Din feel oddly pried apart; like the man is working the bolts inside him loose with some invisible hand. He supposes there’s good reason for it though, considering that he’s about to undress in front of him.

It’s been approximately eight years since anybody has seen Din without any armour on, before tonight. Even longer since anyone has seen his bare skin. On both occasions, that Anyone has been his armourer; their relationship lashed so closely to the Creed that it had felt as natural as being nude alone with himself. This feels very unnatural. Unbuttoning the thick canvas of his shirt to reveal the thin singlet underneath. Vanth’s eyes lingering very closely on him until Din casts his clothes aside and the man’s expression shifts; cycling so quickly through so many that Din again has to force himself to keep from hunching his shoulders. 

The air in the room is cool against his burning wound; reminding him of its rawness, its bleeding. But the longer the silence from Vanth stretches, the less Din is able to find his words. _This is very uncomfortable for me,_ he wants to say. And, _please, understand the trust I’m giving you —_

Vanth grins at him, eyes crinkling up with the warmth of it, and just like that he’s going back to his medkit, picking through the disarray the child had left it in. “Your secret is safe with me,” he murmurs, and throws Din a playful, conspiratorial glance. “We’re one and the same, Mando. Don’t you worry.”

“You —” Din stares at the man, dumbly. Watches him pluck a small glass bottle from the kit, followed by a pad of gauze. The glass is deep brown, the same colour as his eyes as Vanth leans away from the light, and back into Din’s space. “We are?” Din asks, finding his voice finally.

Vanth winks. “I’ve been told we’re everywhere.” Then he laughs, and gestures. “Arm up, let’s see what we’re working with here.”

The air in the room feels thick once more; Din’s muscles moving at Vanth’s command rather than under his own volition. Slowly, slowly. Easy, Din thinks, in Vanth’s voice. Lifting his arm pulls the wound anew; Vanth whistles when he gets a good look at it.

“Got you good,” he says, appraisingly. 

Din fixes his eyes on the counter behind Vanth; that glass of liquor abandoned to it now. “Pretty good,” he agrees, keeping his voice low in the quiet room. When he’d agreed to this; a wash, a patch-up, something to eat, he couldn’t have predicted this. Sat bare from hips to jaw, bleeding down his side as a liquor-loosened Vanth prods gently at his wound, just hard enough to have Din grimacing silently behind his visor. 

“Tricky,” Vanth decides, leaning back to give Din’s side a considering look. His hand passes over his beard, thumb coming to rest at the middle of his mouth. “Tricky, tricky. I ain’t much good with stitches.”

Din’s eyes are on the ceiling, but that brings him back down to earth. “That bad?” he asks, trying to twist to see it himself. But all the movement does is pull the wound; the gash tucked in such a spot that he can’t see it properly. Just the blood; half dried and flaking, half fresh and black in the dim room. 

Vanth’s hand rests warningly on his thigh. “C’mon,” he murmurs, palm very hot through Din’s trousers; the same thick canvas as his shirt. “Work with me here. Wound like this ain’t gonna heal if you keep movin’.”

Din swallows, his throat dry. He always feels vulnerable without his armour; like an insect with all its soft parts scooped out for the world to look at. Vanth’s big hand on his leg isn’t helping. His bare chest; his pain and the cool air sending his skin goosepimpling, his nipples tightening, well that isn’t helping much either.

He’s never been seen like this. Never ever been touched like this; so gently, so tenderly. The acrid smell of the antiseptic in Vanth’s little brown bottle thick in his nose, stinging his wound as the man dabs at it; just firmly enough to tell Din that he knows what he’s doing. Just softly enough that Din knows he’s trying his hardest not to hurt him.

Still, Din finds himself gritting his teeth, squeezing his eyes shut; hunched over his knees with his side bared to Vanth’s hands. So big and so work-roughened that they’ve got no business being so careful with him. 

He supposes that it helps, that Vanth is just like him. Or, something similar. Din feels as though what he is is so wrapped up in his Creed, in his armour, in his complete anonymity, that Vanth can’t possibly relate. Beneath his beskar, Din is everything and he is nothing. To the outside world, he is a man, he’s Mandalorian; he’s armour, he’s war, he’s solid and silent duty. It’s his cocoon, his chrysalis. What emerges is seen by nobody; rarely even Din himself. His sense of his own physicality is fractured, and vague; made up of guesswork and spotty memory. It’s how he likes it. Not a man, not a woman; instead something amorphous and constantly shifting. He likes his breasts. He likes his body hair. He likes the beard he shaves sporadically, and his small dick, his low voice. 

Perhaps that’s why he buckled to Vanth’s good-natured prodding. There’s no shame keeping him hidden. Only his Creed, and his own dogged loyalty to it.

“You’re very quiet,” Vanth murmurs. The only sound in the house is the crinkling of paper, then the sound of the antiseptic being set back down. The smell of it in the air is refreshed; its stinging starting anew as Vanth leans in to swipe over Din’s side.

By Vanth’s knee, a couple discarded pads of gauze sit; bloodied and balled up. Din rests his helmet on his arms; hunched over himself as he succumbs to the wiping once again. 

“It doesn’t surprise me you do things the old-fashioned way,” he says, softly. His voice is made rough with his thirst. The liquor on the counter is looking more appealing as time goes by.

“Tech can fail,” Vanth says, dismissively. His eyes flick up to meet Din’s visor, playful. “I’m an old-fashioned kinda guy.”

Din snorts, a smile tugging at his mouth, pulling at his split lip. “In what ways?”

Vanth drops his eyes, discarding his gauze to the side. He’s smiling, something warm tucked away in it. “Just in the ways that count.” 

He doesn’t stitch Din up, thankfully. Din thinks if he had to be taken apart in one more way tonight, he’d fall apart and never come back together. He’d become just as shapeless as he feels inside; some fragmentary version of himself undone by so much touch after so long without it. Instead, Vanth presses a fresh piece of gauze to the cut, and tapes it up. Lip caught between his teeth, amber eyes sharp with his concentration as he murmurs, “This’ll hold you until you can get to Mos Eisley.”

His fingers are incredibly gentle, as they smooth over the tape, sealing it flush to Din’s goose pimpled skin. Isn’t it strange? It’s always the men with the roughest hands that somehow know how to use them to heal, rather than hurt. 

“Thank you,” he says, quietly. Din has no intention of getting further outside help with his injury, but Vanth doesn’t need to know that. He feels distinctly that the man would tear that carefully laid bandage off and stitch Din up whether he likes it or not, if he knew. 

Once he’s done, Vanth stands and wanders away down the corridor to the fresher, giving Din space to dress himself. He does so quickly; pulling his undershirt over his head with a grunt, the bandage on his side keeping him from moving easily. It means he forgoes the rough canvas undershirt; the idea of having to bend his arm to pull the thing on leaving Din exhausted even at the thought. It’s enough to be covered by the thin cotton singlet. After all, Vanth has seen so much of him now that Din can’t really bring himself to feel as though he should cover himself back up. 

If Vanth is surprised to see Din not cloaked from neck to feet again when he returns, he doesn’t show it. Just asks, “Feel better?” and grins. His hands and wrists glisten with water; the hair on his forearms wet with it. 

Din watches Vanth wipe them dry on his pants, and mutters, “Not exactly.”

He’s still prickled all over with pain-raised goosepimples. His body a live wire, a raw nerve; unsure whether to swing the way of pleasantly or unpleasantly sensitised. Din isn’t sure which one he’d prefer, with Vanth looking at him the way he is. Soft, and considering, his eyes dark honey. It’s an impossible choice; to give in, or to go without. Din knows which he should choose. But he also knows which one he wants. 

Vanth settles himself against the counter; lit from behind by the yellow lights tucked under the cabinets. His home is a low, oblong shape; built from pale packed clay to keep it cool in the days, and warm in the cold desert nights. Like two pills, held together by that narrow hallway, home to a fresher and a closet and an array of dusty boots; kicked off before crossing the threshold into the bedroom. Moonlight in his bedroom. Starlight in his kitchen, and the smoky flicker of kerosene, aflame. Din breathes it in. Breathes it out. Wonders if Vanth knows that he’s looking right into his eyes or whether it’s just a fluke. 

“Drink?” the man asks. His fingertips nudge at his own glass, the amber liquid inside undulating with the movement. 

Woodenly, Din shakes his head. “I don’t drink,” he says. Vanth’s eyebrows raise. “I know. We’re not supposed to alter ourselves.”

“Ha,” Vanth says, and when Din cocks his head to the side in question, he shrugs. Hand going for the glass of liquor, which he spins between his fingertips once, before adding, “You’ve altered yourself.” 

It’s sly; accompanied by a teasing, sidelong glance. And ridiculously, Din finds himself colouring under his helmet; flushing hot down to his chest. Skin prickling once more; his body seemingly found the way in which its decided to swing. There’s something to Vanth that’s as sharp as a spear; unerring when wielded by the right hand. Right now Din can feel it buried handle-deep in him, quivering with the reverberation of how quickly and effortlessly Vanth had sunk it home. 

“It’s different,” Din says, gruffly. 

Vanth grins knowingly at him, slouched boneless and handsome against the counter. “Guess some rules are made to be broken, huh?”

Din can’t respond. His dick is throbbing between his legs. 

When he’d first crossed the threshold into Vanth’s small, cosy home, it had been with the plan to leave as soon as the man patched him up. All Din needed was to be good enough to ride. His speeder waits for him on the edge of town; the Crest stationed at Mos Eisley. Din knows that if he left now, he’d reach the city by dawn. Would be back in the safety of his own ship and off to try and fit together the next part of his puzzle before the suns began to nudge their twin brows over the horizon. It was easy; in and out. 

But he hadn’t factored in this. Vanth, and his careful, clever hands. His one-and-the-sameness. The way he looks at Din as if he’s something to be looked at; more than his armour, more than his helmet, more than the label of Mandalorian. Sometimes, Din forgets he’s more than that too. There’s a comfort in standing behind his Creed so strongly that he begins to melt into it. Amalgamated, like the play of Tattooine’s triplicate moonlight on its red sand. Everything becomes bleached in its light. Din feels like its done more than bleach him. It’s stripped him down to nothing; made him transparent as a pane of glass for Vanth’s shrewd, leisurely gaze to settle on. 

If one submits sand to extreme heat, it becomes glass. Din feels as though he’s set to shatter, when Vanth’s hot fingers nudge at the curl of hair that just creeps from under Din’s helmet, at his nape. 

“I wonder what you look like,” Vanth murmurs, thoughtfully. His broad, rough palm folds over the top of Din’s spine. 

_Me too,_ Din thinks, wildly. Then Vanth’s fingers splay against his back, and Din stops thinking about himself, he stops thinking about all the bent and broken rules. Because here he is, all his most tender spots laid bare; the inside of his wrist, the inside of his elbow. The hollow of his throat and the nape of his neck, and Vanth is touching all of it as if he knows. 

“Where can I touch you?” he asks. His eyes are burning, needling right through Din’s beskar to the flesh underneath. 

“Anywhere,” Din says, roughly. And then, “Please.”

Some rules are made to be broken. The last person to see Din bare of either his beskar or his clothes was his Armourer, but that doesn’t mean he’s a stranger to this. To hot breath on his visor, to his dick hard and aching between his legs, to his wet making his underwear stick to him. His side smarts, his lip hurts; but Din has never been one to let pain keep him from what he wants. And he wants this, badly. He wants Vanth and his hot hands and that part of him that sinks unerringly to middle of everything that makes him _Din._

So here they are, kerosene-glow, Vanth’s silver hair and silver beard and silver tongue, as he murmurs, “You’re somethin’ _else,_ ” as his hand works at Din’s button fly. Din, he’s swallowed his tongue; all he can manage is a noise dredged up right from the pit of his stomach, fingers fumbling over Vanth’s in their twin haste to lessen the amount of clothes between them. He doesn’t know how he’s supposed to respond anyway. Vanth seems increasingly adept at stopping the flow of Din’s thoughts as they stand. What was _please_ — and _touch me,_ and _was this the plan all along?_ flattens out to grainy background hum. Din’s pants are around his ankles. Vanth is tugging at the laces of his boots. 

“Oh,” Din tells the ceiling. 

“Oh,” Vanth parrots teasingly back. 

Then Din is bare from the waist down; only his undershirt to keep him from nakedness. That, and his helmet. But really, Din has felt nude since he’d taken his breastplate off. Vanth is still fully clothed. It shouldn’t make Din as hard as it does.

This hadn’t been planned. Not in the slightest. But still, Din thinks that it might’ve always been on the cards. When he curls his fingers gently in Vanth’s hair, and Vanth goes easily into the crux of Din’s legs. When he moans, and Vanth echoes him; his sound muffled by being pressed so close to where Din is hot and slick and wanting. It’s the same synchronicity that had killed the dragon, that had allied Din to Vanth’s side despite the man’s ill-gotten beskar. 

Vanth’s mouth is velvet wet heat against Din’s skin. His hip, his inner thigh, his dick. When Vanth touches him there Din makes a low, wounded noise; so over-sensitised and prickly with feeling that Vanth’s tongue to where he’s aching feels as visceral as if he’d hurt him. But it’s not hurt. It’s just so much pleasure that Din feels it overspill immediately; feels tears wet the corners of his eyes from years of going without this. Only his own hand on the rare occasions he can’t ignore his own wants. And even then it’s brief, mechanical; all business. Just seeking release and little more. But Vanth is taking his sweet time. Hands curling at the back of Din’s thighs, his thumbs pressing into the crease where ass meets thigh. Din feels spread; bared open. Only the moons and the lamps and Vanth’s drained glass of whiskey to witness them. 

Distantly, Din’s side throbs. His split lip stings. It all pales in comparison to the way Vanth is sucking on him; his mouth hot and consuming and deliberate, tongue pressing into Din’s hole, passing over his dick, eating him up from the outside in. 

“ _Fuck,_ ” Din manages. Language has been stolen from him. He can taste blood in his mouth from his torn-up lip. When he glances down the line of his body, it’s to find Vanth gazing at him; brown eyes made dark from the shadow thrown by Din’s thigh, mouth working hungrily on him. 

Din supposes it takes someone who is one-and-the-same to know his way around Din’s body. Partners in the past have treated him as either man or woman; either just fucked him or let him fuck them. But Vanth’s tongue and fingers are inside him, rubbing at him, tugging on him. Such a cacophony of pleasure that Din orgasms once without even managing to warn Vanth of it. Shivering through it silently, teeth sunk into his lip and making his hurt lip worse, but somehow the pain mingles with the pleasure and heightens it. His nipples are drawn tight and sensitive. Din shudders and moans when Vanth passes his fingers over one, and then grips it; pinches it. 

He’s leaking onto Vanth’s nice sofa, he knows it. But Din can’t even force himself to care. He’s coming again on Vanth’s face, around his all-knowing fingers, so hot on the heels of the last one that it almost hurts. Face screwing up behind his helmet, mouth dropping open on a moan he can’t bite back on this time. The noise loud and very sudden in the small, quiet room. Without really registering the movement, Din pushes Vanth’s head away. 

He goes easy. Chin and mouth wet in the low light as he grins up at Din from between his thighs. “Twice, by my count,” he murmurs, voice rough and catching in his throat. 

“Fuck,” Din manages, eloquently. Vanth’s smile grows. 

This is the point where any normal person would stumble to the bedroom. Because, really, the sofa is going to screw up Din’s back, and Vanth’s too. They’re both past the age where athleticism plays a big part in the bedroom. But sex is always better when it’s like this. Rushed, heated, vaguely uncomfortable in a way that you don’t realise until after the fact, when your neck and your back are aching at you for fucking all twisted up and contorted. It makes it feel dirtier; more spontaneous. Vanth’s fingers digging into the back of Din’s thighs as he presses Din’s knees back against his chest; opening him up to press his still-clothed hips to Din’s wet hole. When he comes away, there’s a distinct wet spot on the pale fabric; one that makes Din flush red under his visor. That kind of dirtiness. Uncaring. Because all that’s on either of their minds is pleasure; not dirtied pants, not aching backs. 

“Please,” Din says, his voice low and rough. His fingers bunch in the front of Vanth’s shirt; hooking in the open vee of it where his chest hair shows, where the hollow of his throat shines with sweat. “Take it off,” he urges, Vanth’s hips pressing between his legs again. “Your turn.” 

_You’ve seen me,_ he wants to say, but doesn’t want to draw attention to what a vulnerable act it is. Not when Vanth is grinning down at him, still pressed comfortably to where Din is wet and aching for him, his dick still hard and throbbing despite his orgasms. Not when he’s pulling his shirt over his head; the faded old silver scars that run beneath his nipples tugging with the movement. Din finds he wants to test his tongue against them; wants to feel the hard flatness of Vanth’s chest, where his is still soft and giving. But he settles for pushing his fingers through the man’s chest hair, the two of them shifting just slightly, so Din’s feet can find the ground once more; so Vanth can step back and begin working on his belt buckle. 

The wet patch on the front of his pants. Din is only half ashamed for wishing that Vanth would press his face into it. 

His body hair is the same dark grey as the hair on his head and his face. Pale when it catches the light; Din follows it down with his fingers until his hand is hovering above the crux of Vanth’s legs; the man standing there nude and unashamed by it. He widens his stance a little, eyes heavy and unerring on Din’s visor, as if he’s shot that spear of himself through the beskar to bury deep into Din’s brain. It would explain a lot. 

“Go on,” he murmurs, when Din hesitates a moment longer. He widens his legs further, lamplight catching the vague shine of slick skin, and settles his palm to the top of Din’s helmet. 

In any other situation, Din would recoil at having his helmet touched so easily, so possessively. But he’s hypnotised by the shine of Vanth’s arousal, by the fat swell of his dick beneath the hair between his legs. He wishes he could get his mouth on it, but instead settles for cupping at him; feeling the heat of him against his palm, the press of Vanth’s dick against his wrist. At the touch, the man sighs, eyes falling shut as he very slowly, and very deliberately, rocks his dick down against Din’s bare wrist.

“That’s right,” he murmurs, and Din swallows, throat feeling tight and dry. When he goes to push his fingers up, further into all that wet heat, Vanth’s hand comes down to circle around his forearm. “Not there,” he says, and drags Din’s hand back until he presses his fingertips to the man’s asshole. “Here, if you wanna fuck me.”

Din doesn’t know what he wants to do. His brain flew out of the window the minute he orgasmed on Vanth’s face. Everything that’s followed that has been pure autopilot; pure want. He supposes there’s worse things he could do, then to lean into it. 

“C’mere,” he says, unsteadily, sinking back into the sofa and pulling Vanth with him. It’s not an easy fit; two old, inflexible men that they are, not to mention having to make room for Vanth’s long-limbed, rangy self. But it works. Vanth’s hands splay across the cheeks of Din’s helmet; gentle like he’s touching Din’s skin, as if he knows he’s hurt and still-bleeding under there. Sat in Din’s lap, his dick pressed up wet and comfortable against Din’s lower belly, grinning all hazy and pleased. Hair aglow from the lamplight; eyes dark with his arousal.

Din grips at his hip; hand sliding over the skin there to settle against Vanth’s lower back, to urge him to grind forward against his stomach. Vanth goes easily, happily, and for a moment the only sounds in the small room is their breathing, and the slick wet noises of Vanth working himself on Din’s belly. 

Then, he speaks. “You’re more gentle than I thought you’d be, Mando,” Vanth mutters, and his hands slip around to clutch at Din’s nape. His voice is low, and deep, fingernails digging into Din’s skin as he glances down to watch himself rub his dick on Din. Din’s watching too; incapable of looking away from the fat swell of Vanth’s dick, and the wet catching in Din’s stomach hair. 

“You thought about it?” he asks, gruffly, clutching at the swell of Vanth’s ass. His own dick is throbbing away, ignored, thighs slick from his orgasms and the arousal that keeps tugging at his gut. “That I’d be rough?”

Vanth laughs, softly. Hair hanging into his eyes, mouth red and wet and open. “Sure,” he breathes, and then huffs; a half moan. “Maybe I’m a little narrow-minded sometimes.”

Din sighs, tipping his head back against the wall behind to watch Vanth rock in his lap. Fingers tightening on the man’s narrow hips, urging him closer, faster, harder. “I’m not rough,” Din says, lowly. His hand slips over Vanth’s ass; finding his hole, slicked with the man’s wet. “I don’t do this often, actually.”

Vanth makes a noise when Din presses his fingers to his ass; rubbing firmly at his hole as the man grinds faster at his stomach. “Never could’ve guessed,” he pants, hand coming to clutch at Din’s shoulder now; using him as an anchor, pressing him firmly back into the sofa. Din knows he could overturn Vanth in a heartbeat; could pin him as easy as the man is pinning him now, but a good part of him enjoys the feeling of helplessness. There’s not many times that he gets to feel like this; pinned in place by a touch, by the spear of Vanth’s eyes as they lift up to rest on Din’s visor again. 

_Stop_ , Din almost wants to tell him. _Do you know what you’re doing?_ He wishes desperately to reach his own dick; to tug himself off while Vanth fucks his orgasm out against his skin. To tip over the edge at the same time as Vanth, to shake and sweat and clutch at him while the man does the same to him. He can feel how wet Vanth is; dripping down to his asshole, smearing across Din’s belly. He’s so turned on that when Vanth starts to come, Din is halfway sure he could follow him along, untouched. Taken there by the noises he makes, by the way his mouth drops open and his eyes screw shut, hand gripping so hard at Din’s shoulder he’s sure he’ll be able to look tomorrow and find finger-shaped bruises there. He hopes he does. 

Vanth flops down boneless against Din’s front, as soon as he’s finished shivering along in the aftershocks of his orgasm. He’s solid, and warm; very heavy slumped against Din’s chest like this. The two of them catching their breath together, Vanth’s face tucked in so close to Din’s own that his forehead is pressed to the helmet’s cheek. 

Slowly, Din passes his hand down Vanth’s back. Feeling every bump of his spine, feeling the sweat covering him in a light sheen. The way his ribcage expands and shrinks, coming slower as his breathing begins to even out. Then he groans, and shifts, and Din’s heart is skipping a strange little beat as Vanth presses a quick kiss to his helmet before straightening up. 

“Fuck,” he says, pleasantly, and grins as he stretches his arms over his head. Something in his back pops. The hair on his chest and belly is wet with sweat and come. Din knows he’s still turned on by how badly he wishes he could put his face to it; to breathe in the man’s smell without several inches of beskar between them. 

“Was that good for you?” he asks. Vanth grins at him, positively radiant in his post-orgasm glow.

“Oh, y’know,” he drawls, letting his arms flop back to his sides. He shrugs lazily. “It was alright.”

Behind his helmet, Din’s eyes roll. And Vanth’s smile grows, as if he’d seen it. 

“What about you?” Vanth adds, his hand coming idly to flatten over Din’s sternum. His undershirt had gotten pulled up long before Vanth had settled his dick on Din’s belly; rucked up underneath the vague swell of his breasts, which Vanth now thumbs over. Judging by the bright, alert look in his eyes, Vanth knows well enough that Din isn’t yet done. It’d be embarrassing, if he wasn’t so hard. 

“Good,” Din manages, a moan slipping out as Vanth tugs idly on a nipple. “Vanth, I —”

“Wish I could fuck you,” Vanth mutters, ignoring him. He shifts in Din’s lap; swings his leg over so he’s curled into Din’s side. And Din, he has to fight the urge to close his legs; suddenly self conscious about how hard and wet he still is. But Vanth coming on him had taken all of the arousal he had before and turned it up to eleven; Din feels prickly with it, so turned on he feels restless. His knees knock. Firmly, Vanth guides them back apart. 

“You wanna fuck me?” he asks, giving over to it. 

Vanth’s lip curls; his eyes dark and wicked as they rove over Din, who feels so debauched that he can barely return to Vanth’s gaze. “I do,” the man says, as his hand comes down to cup Din; his dick, his hole. It’s a possessive touch, as possessive as the way Vanth’s had laid his hand on Din’s helmet. Unconsciously, Din presses his hips into it. “But I’ll settle for this,” Vanth adds, as his fist closes around Din’s dick. 

Din’s third orgasm feels as though it gets wrung out of him; his dick so overworked and sensitive that he pushes Vanth’s hand away before he’s really done coming, drawing his thighs together as moans, and arches his back. Vanth, he’s laughing; crowding close to press his forehead affectionately to Din’s helmet, whispering, _you finally done?_ in such a way that makes Din’s dick pulse all over again.

“ _Yes_ ,” he gasps, shoving at Vanth, who just chuckles. “Fuck, yes.”

“Okay,” Vanth says, agreeably, letting Din tip him off his perch on his thigh. “I believe you now.”

They collapse sweaty and disgusting onto the sofa, though Vanth doesn’t go far. Bare side pressed up against Din’s almost-bare side, something very smug in his expression when Din finally uncurls enough to look at him. They regard each other in the low light of that flickering lamp. Din wonders what Vanth sees when he looks at him. He wonders if the lamplit shines in his visor as it shines in Vanth’s eyes.

He supposes he won’t ever know. His heart is still thrumming, fast like a trapped little bird. 

Softly, slowly, Vanth asks, “What’re you thinkin’ ‘bout?” 

The desert is so silent, especially in the wake of their heated, close fucking. Din’s back aches. His neck aches. He feels distinctly as if he’s been emptied, hollowed out; then stuffed full again with cotton wool. The kind of muscle-deep exhaustion that only comes from a couple good orgasms. 

He yawns. _I’m thinking about my face_ , he thinks. _I’m trying to remember what colour my eyes are._

Out loud, he mumbles, “Thinking about bed.” His lip stings when he talks; his side burns when he shifts to sit up. Isn’t it funny, the things which fade into the background? Din knows he’s gonna be more sore tomorrow than if he’d hopped back on that speeder and drove all night to make it back to the ship. 

“Now that’s a sensible line of thought,” Vanth says, sounding as heavy as Din himself feels. Neither of them move; instead, Din watches Vanth from the corner of his eye. Watches the way he traces those amber eyes all over Din’s helm. 

_Say it_ , he thinks. _Ask me the question._ There’s a particular silence that comes with curiosity. Din’s too tired to try and dodge questions tonight. He wonders if Vanth knows; wonders if the man would take advantage. 

“Hey,” Vanth says then, and his hand extends, fingers touching lightly to Din’s shoulder. At the touch, Din’s heart leaps into his throat, but then Vanth only mutters, “Hey, your side is bleeding again.”

And so it is. A bright red bloom against the off-white cotton of his undershirt. Din can taste it in his mouth, too, when he swallows.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much for reading!! you can find me on tumblr @getmean :~~)


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